100 that what matters for a democratic citi- zen is "not industry, nor well-balanced supply and demand, nor sobriety and inoffensiveness only. . . . The highest point on my scale can only be met by the man who possesses a combination of qual- ities. . . . Shall we call it communicative- ness?" The mark of a liberal democracy is the presence of organized gregariousness, the principle of communicativeness, of commonplace civilization. O LMSTED was right. Commonplace civilization is the beating heart of open societies. In a famous 1993 study of democratic institutions in Italy, Rob- ert Putnam gave a quantifiable, empiri- cal confirmation of Olmsted's insight: what makes democracy work is the pres- ence of what, in socio10gese, is called "hori- wntal" leisure groups. Choral groups make good government; fireworks protect from tyranny. Yet Olmsted was a lot less moist about community than many modern communitarians (including, at times, Putnam himself) He was hardheaded about the limits of communicativeness. He never dreamed of recovering a lost organic community, outside the hold of "procedural" liberalism. In "The Cotton Kingdom" he announces that if you want to see an organic, unself-conscious cul- ture you can look south-to a commu- nity where everyone knows his place and, lacking any other experience of com- munity, takes its abuses as part of the natural order. Olmsted understood that there was no possibility of restoring a lost community of authentic relation- ships. All those pleasure-seeking little groups would have to be forced together artificially. A liberal civilization would have to accept a great deal of organized hypoc- risy. "A man comes to our house, and custom requires that our countenance should brighten, and that we should say we are glad to see him," he wrote in "The Cotton Kingdom. " 'We have to choose between a forced, artificial, formal and false expression of a true kindness, and truth and simplicity. . . . The Southerner can understand nothing of all this. He naturally accepts the institutions, man- ners and customs in which he is educated THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 31, 1997 as necessities imposed upon him by Providence." Olmsted saw that glee clubs could be the foundation of a truly dem- ocratic society, but only if people ac- cepted the notion that there would be other glee clubs, making other music, which they might have to pretend to like, even if they didn' t. For Olmsted, fireworks and hypocrisy were the foun- dations of liberal government: on the one hand, a commonplace civilization of people playing their own games; on the other, an organized pretense that one group's games were just as good as the next group's Unlike most modern communitari- ans, Olmsted believed that only govern- ment could do both jobs at once: let the fireworks go off and enforce the hypoc- risy of believing that they all sparkled the same. In 1865, he wrote, "It is the main duty of government, if it is not the sole duty of government, to provide means of protection for all its citizens in the pur- suit of happiness against the obstacles, otherwise insurmountable, which the selfishness of individuals or combinations of individuals is liable to interpose to that >. 0"'" r, i No one can ever know everything, but that's not to say you shouldn't continue to learn. Our new catalog has 130 pages filled with educational courses for people 55 and over - from Shakespeare in Oregon to cave-crawling in Kentucky. Call for your free catalog today and take a look Or write to Elderhostel, 75 Federal Street, Dept. 1, Boston, MA 02110 You'll see just how much there is to learn. . ^ ELDERHQSTEL u 1liidStut.. <m4 ' -- 0'.' '.' ".J'! '\ - - $ f ... ..... CallI (800) 895-0727 for your free catalog. :-<r<' ' ;"_.. .". r of ....:<.... << ;,_';":'-': Society has always tapped into the wisdom of elders. Here's a convenient way to replenish your supply; , \í . < . ^ ""- i- f}: \ :.:,. ; EXN